KNOWLEDGE AND UNDERSTANDING

We as humans have always been striving for further knowledge regarding the world since the dawn of time. Knowledge is one of the foundations of the society we live in today. Through knowledge, we are able to reach an understanding of many things and develop various ideas. Nevertheless, what is this thing that we consider as knowledge actually? So, welcome to the world of epistemology. The term epistemology comes from the Greek word epistēmē which means knowledge, and logos which means reason. Epistemology, fundamentally, is a branch of philosophy that pursues the study of knowledge. As a discipline, epistemology seeks to distinguish true knowledge from false knowledge as well as try to find out how to acquire true knowledge systematically. 

In this article, the approach on the knowledge that will be discussed is that of Immanuel Kant’s. Immanuel Kant was a German philosopher that lived during the 18th century. One of Kant’s ideas touches upon the concept of knowledge, and this idea of his was called transcendental idealism. To understand the idea of Kant’s transcendental idealism, we must first understand his concept of phenomena and noumena. According to Kant, the dualism of phenomena and noumena is what the world is based upon in the context of knowledge. Phenomena are our mind’s interpretation of reality, while noumena are reality itself regardless of our interpretation. He claims that we only have the ability to understand reality from the interpretation that our mind has made and that we can never truly know the reality of things because we can only see it from an external perspective. What this means is that our knowledge of things is limited and that we will never be able to gain knowledge on noumena. 

An example of this is when we see a rock, any kind of rock. What comes into your mind when the word rock comes into a discussion? It is solid, hard, rough or smooth, and so on. Those things that have been mentioned regarding the rock are all interpretations that our mind has created from the collective of observation and experience. While we may be able to describe and say what could be categorized as a rock, we will never be able to grasp the true understanding of what a rock is. That is because our mind limits reality in which we can only perceive the rock and that we will never be able to transcend the limitations of the mind.

References

Kleinman, P. (2013). Immanuel Kant. In P. Kleinman, Philosophy 101 (pp. 82-86). Avon, Massachusetts: Adams Media.

Martinich, A., & Stroll, A. (2021, February 11). Epistemology. Retrieved October 21 2021, from Britannica: https://www.britannica.com/topic/epistemology

Stang, N. F. (2016, March 4). Kant’s Transcendental Idealism. Retrieved October 21, 2021, from Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/kant-transcendental-idealism/

The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica. (2020, February 14). Transcendental idealism. Retrieved October 21, 2021, from Britannica: https://www.britannica.com/topic/transcendental-idealism